Advice on daily decision making with Asperger’s

I have all the same problems you have listed in this email.

For everyday things make a schedule and stick to it. For example, schedule when you eat with friends when you don’t. And when you check email, etc. It’s hard to stick to a schedule because for us, transitions are hard, but it’s very important for you to stick to a schedule so you don’t have to make decisions all day. Also, the more you can make every day’s schedule the same, the more comfortable you’ll feel about transitions – you’ll learn tricks to get yourself from one task to another without getting lost.

As for the medical problems, what you describe is so common for people with Asperger’s. I could make a list of things in my life that were very similar to you. Here are two posts.

http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/01/05/7-things-to-consider-before-launching-a-startup/

http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/10/11/techniques-for-looking-normal/

I think it might just be how we are. Most people put pain at the top of their list of things to deal with, but we don’t do that intuitively. I don’t know what else to say. I try to make doctor’s appointments regularly, but honestly, I have no idea how most people are so good at taking care of medical problems.

I think we have so many things we need to try to normalize that we have to pick the most important. And there are everyday issues that I really need to get better at, so the medical issues are not that important because they don’t come up every day: Asperger’s triage.

Penelope

I do not have Asperger’s, but have worked in Operations and Logistics for many years on both a large and small scale. Penelope’s advice about sticking a schedule is very important. A few other rules I have for myself:

• Always have a running to-do list that you can access at any time. Do not leave your personal to do list at home.

• When unsure, rank tasks by urgency and always do the next most urgent thing on your list *that fits into your schedule.*

• Forever in adult life, there will be errands you need to run that can only be done during normal business hours. This includes doctor’s appointments. You need to have at least one slot in your schedule every week during a weekday when you handle these types of things. Like in-person banking, going to the DMV or taking your cell phone to get repaired. If possible, build a 4-hour open chunk of time between Monday-Friday from 8am-5pm into your class schedule next semester. Then when you are making appointments, that is the time you have available. If there are no openings during that window this week, ask for the same time next week. For the weeks that you don’t have an appointment scheduled during that block, that’s when you do non-urgent errands that are hard to make time for otherwise, like getting your oil changed or buying more AA batteries.

• There will be times when everything gets messed up and you are way off your schedule. Don’t try to redesign your schedule every time this happens. The schedule design is rarely the problem. The problem is that life is actually chaotic and not everything fits in neatly 100% of the time. So, no design will be perfect, but the schedule still helps tremendously. When things go bananas, just start on schedule again tomorrow.